Capita sells Trustmarque to meet £700 million disposal target
Global consultancy Capita has continued its restructuring exercise with the sale of its IT services suite Trustmarque. The sale to One Equity Partners will see Trustmarque’s senior management take control of its operations.
Over the last two years, Capita has worked to sell a number of its non-core businesses, in response to financial pressures exerted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The firm has used the sale as an opportunity to strengthen its balance sheet and address upcoming maturities – leading to a string of sales.
Following a deal to offload its legal systems division in 2020, Capita also confirmed the sale of its Education Software Solutions business before the start of 2021. Meanwhile in October of last year, it also agreed to sell its Secure Solutions and Services business to NEC Software Solutions UK.
Now, Capita has agreed to the sale of Trustmarque – a provider of IT services and solutions – to One Equity Partners, in a deal worth more than £100 million. The deal will see Capita exit the company, while Trustmarque’s senior management and employees will remain with the business, backed by One Equity Partners.
The sale will conclude for £111 million on a cash free, debt free basis. Meanwhile, accounting for cash-like and debt-like items, Capita expects to receive net proceeds of around £115 million at completion – and an additional payment of around £3 million is receivable by Capita contingent on certain future events. As a result, the proceeds from this sale, subject to successful completion, mean the firm will hit the firm’s previous target of £700 million in total disposal proceeds, by June 2022.
Jon Lewis, Capita’s Chief Executive Officer, remarked, “We are pleased to have agreed the sale of Trustmarque to One Equity Partners following a competitive sale process… Once this sale is completed, we will have exceeded our disposals target – and achieved this much earlier than originally planned. It marks another significant step towards materially reducing our debt, as we continue to simplify and strengthen Capita, and become a more successful business for the long term.”
According to Lewis, Capita will now look to obtain further financial security, but selling the remaining businesses in its portfolio division. Capita aims to dispose of the majority of this by the end of 2022.
